Friday, July 22, 2005

"Bouchenaki Mounir, assistant director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said in Beijing on July 21 that China and UNESCO are now jointly protecting the endangered languages in China.

"At the on-going World Chinese Conference, which opened here on July 20, Mounir said more and more languages in the world were endangered, including Shui Shu, a Chinese language specially used by the local women in south China's Hunan Province. Some languages have a large population of speakers while some have few, therefore the native speakers for the less-spoken languages are no longer willing to use them."